F.I.U. pedestrian bridge collapse (Miami)

Bamaro

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Oct 19, 2001
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The biggest mistake they made is allowing traffic to flow during whatever they were doing.

More details will be coming out as the investigation proceeds but that seems to be the glaring boo boo right now....
If they did it right that wouldn't have been a problem.
 

gtowntide

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Mar 1, 2011
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I'm not a lawyer but I guess they'll be several entities sued over this. Is it the general contractor or the state of Florida who will be held liable? Does FIU have any responsibility?
I read that this contractor had a bad safety record on some past jobs so why use them? It looks like the ball was dropped by a lot of those involved. Bazza, I agree that it seems if they had redirected traffic this wouldn't have happened. What a tragedy.
 
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Bazza

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Oct 1, 2011
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Bridge designer left state voice mail about cracks days before FIU bridge collapsed


There are always red flags when disaster strikes......people need to get their heads out of their butts!


Two days before a pedestrian bridge collapsed at Florida International University, killing at least six people, an engineer with the firm that designed the structure called the state and left a voicemail to report cracking in the concrete span.


It went unheard for three days.

“Hey Tom, this is Denney Pate with FIGG bridge engineers. Calling to, uh, share with you some information about the FIU pedestrian bridge and some cracking that’s been observed on the north end of the span, the pylon end of that span we moved this weekend,” Pate said.

“Um, so, uh, we’ve taken a look at it and, uh, obviously some repairs or whatever will have to be done but from a safety perspective we don’t see that there’s any issue there so we’re not concerned about it from that perspective although obviously the cracking is not good and something’s going to have to be, ya know, done to repair that. At any rate, I wanted to chat with you about that because I suspect at some point that’s gonna get to your desk. So, uh, at any rate, call me back when you can. Thank you. Bye.”
 

dayhiker

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My assumption was that it was supposed to be designed to hold itself up without the tower until it could be placed. That should be self-evident...
I believe that a cable stayed bridge would have to have the tower. According to Brad’s linked article, this was really a truss with a fake tower/cable assembly.

The plot thickens.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

4Q Basket Case

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I'm not a lawyer but I guess they'll be several entities sued over this. Is it the general contractor or the state of Florida who will be held liable? Does FIU have any responsibility?
I read that this contractor had a bad safety record on some past jobs so why use them? It looks like the ball was dropped by a lot of those involved. Bazza, I agree that it seems if they had redirected traffic this wouldn't have happened. What a tragedy.
There's going to be liability all over the place. In no particular order: FIU, the contractors, the engineers, the designers, the suppliers of materials. Whoever made the decision not to block traffic.

I'm guessing that, absent laws specifically exempting them from this sort of thing, the leaders or boards of directors of some organizations might have personal liability.

State employees often have that. But it doesn't generally extend to criminal acts, and a lot of PI lawyers try to get at them that way.

Saw where a spokesman for the Florida DOT said this wasn't a state project, but rather one done solely by FIU. Don't know how or if that affects liability.

I would imagine all victims who weren't killed, and all survivors of the ones who were, have already been contacted by a dozen lawyers each.

There's going to be huge payouts to a large number of people.
 

ccc2259

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Oct 29, 2010
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I’ve watched it a few more times. It almost seems like the failure occurs where the end diagonal connects to the top chord.
dayhiker, I stumbled on a youtube video that shows a photo of a post-stressed rod and hydraulic cylinder protruding out of the concrete, indicating the PT Rod / element might have failed during tensioning. The photo seems to be in the area you're describing as the failure point.

I can't post the link as the video has some language, but if you're interested, PM me and I'll send you the link.
 

UAH

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Nov 27, 2017
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dayhiker, I stumbled on a youtube video that shows a photo of a post-stressed rod and hydraulic cylinder protruding out of the concrete, indicating the PT Rod / element might have failed during tensioning. The photo seems to be in the area you're describing as the failure point.
I can't post the link as the video has some language, but if you're interested, PM me and I'll send you the link.
I watched the video. It does seem clear that the tensioning rod broke prior to the collapse.
It appears that the change made in the support columns when rotating the span over the highway could have induced significant stress on the portion of the span that collapsed first.

One could conclude that the urgency of opening the road for traffic led to decisions to allow traffic to flow under a span that not been properly suspended.
 

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